THE FIELD: 2024 Interior Defensive Linemen Preview
THE FIELD: 2024 Interior Defensive Linemen Preview
Turning the preseason focus onto the big boys
This is the third in an offseason series previewing and ranking the positional groups of Nebraska’s opponents and Nebraska in relation. Links to previous installments can be found below:
Cornerbacks and Nickels / Running Backs
Interior defensive linemen used to be the forgotten cogs in a defense, mostly asked to eat blocks and slog through dirty work while edge rushers got all the sacks and linebackers got all the tackles. A thankless and ignored position.
Not so much anymore. In the last decade-plus, interior defensive linemen at the college level have seen an explosion of athleticism and production, with freak athletes like Aaron Donald, Chris Jones, or Quinnen Williams filtering up to the NFL and becoming pass-rush superstars. Dozens of teams at both the college and pro levels now base their pressure packages on getting one-on-ones for 3-techniques, something that would have been unheard of years ago outside of a few elite players. In our most tangible measure of how football schematics views a position, more and more of the share of NFL cap money is being allocated to interior defensive linemen, with $25 million-plus deals that nominally would have been exclusive to edge rushers five years ago going out to Chris Jones, Justin Madubuike, and Christian Wilkins this offseason. The big boys are now in the spotlight, too.
That’s nothing new for Big Ten schools. The conference has historically been a bastion of quality defensive line play, and should be again this year. In doing his positional rankings, college football prognosticator Phil Steele ranked four Big Ten schools in his top five, with another 13th. Nebraska will run into several of them this season, and a few other deep and interesting units.
Keep in mind that this post is not evaluating overall defensive lines but is focused on just the interior defensive linemen (sometimes abbreviated as IDLs). In addition to film study, to isolate these players’ performance I’ve relied on a few underlying metrics I think help paint a picture of an interior lineman’s individual play:
Average depth of tackle: How far past the line of scrimmage the player was when making their tackles, on average. A deeper average depth of tackle for an interior lineman indicates they are getting pushed off the ball or driven downfield; an interior player stout against the run will make more of his tackles nearer the line of scrimmage. The mean average depth of tackle for starting IDLs last season was 2.3 yards;
Stops: Any play where the defender made a tackle that keeps an offense from having a “successful” play according to success rate. This attempts to measure of how important a player’s tackles are, such as how many prevent a first down or key gain, vs. how many are coming after the offense has achieved its goal on the play. The mean stop total for starting IDLs last season was 8.5;
Stop percentage: The percentage of a player's run defense snaps where he was responsible for a stop. The mean stop percentage for starting IDLs last season was 5.2%;
Pressures: The number of times a player pressured a quarterback as a pass rusher. The mean number of pressures last season for starting IDLs last season was 10; and
Pass-rush win rate: The rate at which a player “won” their pass rush reps against a blocker, not necessarily generating a pressure or sack but getting past the blocker on a pass rush within the structure of the play. This is meant to isolate how good a defender is at rushing the passer outside of their subjective sack total. The mean pass-rush win rate for starting IDLs last season was 5.6%.
Let’s get started!
13. Northern Iowa
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Carter Hewitt, fourth-year junior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Jack Kriebs, fourth-year junior
Projected Rotational Players: Tae Shon McDaniels, third-year sophomore; Jackson Stortz, second-year sophomore; Magnus Wright, second-year sophomore
Projected Depth: Tono Cornell, first-year freshman; Aidan Salow, first-year freshman
This matchup would have been tougher for Nebraska last year, when UNI nose tackle Khristian Boyd was one of the most disruptive defensive linemen in the FCS. But Boyd — a sixth-round pick of the Saints — is in the NFL now, leaving little experience or depth for the 2024 Panthers.
Hewitt and Kriebs have been rotational players over the last two years and were the starters in the spring game. Hewitt played 280 snaps last season and 153 the year before. He hasn’t generated many disruptive plays in his time on the field but has been an average/competent run defender with five stops last season and a 2.2-yard average depth of tackle. Kriebs was limited by injury last year but saw the field extensively as a backup in 2022, when he posted a profile that looks much the same to Hewitt.
UNI played a lot of true 3-3 Stack defense last year with Boyd as the only interior lineman on the field and operating as a nose tackle in the A gap. Hewitt and Kriebs have primarily operated as 3-techniques aligned more over the guards in their careers. Both do have about 30 career snaps at nose if they choose to keep playing that way, and Kriebs is the larger of the two at 280 pounds — Hewitt is only 260 — and could take over that role. And you may see the Panthers play in more four-man fronts this season to better fit their current personnel and not having Boyd to disrupt in the middle.
Beyond that, there’s not much play or data to evaluate; it’s a completely new room. McDaniels only played in one game last year in garbage time and doesn’t really have enough snaps to draw any real conclusions from. The rest of the players have never seen the field. Worth noting that Wright is the largest player in the room at 290 pounds and could work in at nose, also.
Overall, this is a physically small and light room with no previous FBS level talents — and no real experience or depth, either. No disrespect to the FCS but that’s a pretty clear last-place finish.
12. UTEP
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: KD Johnson, fourth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Sione Tonga’uiha, fourth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Longolongo Va’a, third-year sophomore; Ashton Coker, first-year freshman
Projected Rotational Nose Tackle: Tevita Tafuna, fifth-year senior
Projected Depth: Quinzavious Warren, fifth-year junior; Chase Bibler, fourth-year senior; Joey Lightfoot, second-year freshman
This is another group Nebraska is benefitting by playing a year later. Keenan Stewart — formerly of Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs — was PFF’s No. 11-graded interior lineman nationally in 2023, and edge/5-technique hybrid Praise Amaewhule earned first-team all-conference honors. Both are in NFL training camps now.
The Miners are also transitioning to a 3-3-5 defensive structure under new coach Scotty Walden of Austin Peay, but a more variational one that plays predominantly with true three-player fronts (with only a nose tackle lined up directly across from the offensive center and two ends across from or shaded slightly inside of the tackles). If the scheme stays consistent from Austin Peay, UTEP will likely only have one of these players on the field for most of their snaps.
UTEP will return four players from last year’s defensive line rotation who seem likely to fit into those 3-3-5 roles.
Tonga’uiha was Stewart’s primary running mate last year when UTEP was in a four-player front, making five starts last year and playing 215 snaps, primarily as a 3-tech. He’s now listed as a nose tackle on the Miners roster and seems to be the most likely to take that head-up-on-the-center spot in the new defense. He wasn’t a disruptor/penetrator or much as a pass rusher in 2023 but did have decent underlying numbers as just a block eater. He’s 6’0 and 295 pounds, so he’s more of the stout, under-your-pads kind of nose archetype.
Johnson also saw the field for over 200 snaps last year while moving all around the front, playing at least 30 snaps each as a 3-tech, over a tackle as a 4i/5 technique, or outside a tackle as a true defensive end. All at 300 pounds. He even played 12 snaps as a nose last year. He’s now listed as a “defensive tackle” and seems likely to play that 3-3-5 end spot over the offensive tackle in the new defense that slides inside for four-player fronts.1 While he was versatile, his play wasn’t particularly effective, as he often failed to hold the line of scrimmage on tape, even on the outside when matched up against tackles. Some of the isolated numbers show him being a pretty horrid run defender (a 4.2 yard average depth of tackle, 510th nationally out of 542 qualifying IDLs). He displayed slightly more productivity as a pass rusher than Tonga’uiha, with a 7.1% win percentage, but only generated five total pressures in 86 true pass-rush snaps.
Va’a also rotated in last year and in a smaller sample size as a redshirt freshman was probably the best returning player on the team at this position, both as a run defender and pass rusher. He recorded a stop on 10.3% of his run-play downs, which would have been 28th nationally if he had qualified, and he generated as many pressures as Johnson in 30 fewer pass-rush snaps. The big caveat with him is that this came with him playing only 128 total snaps, all but 17 of which came against G5 schools. He’s still a young player, so if he’s able to maintain that production in a bigger role this year he could be a breakout candidate and crack the starting lineup. He’s also listed as a tackle on the Miners’ roster, so presumably will be playing that 5-tech end spot, like Johnson.
Another name to keep an eye on at the end spot is Coker, a three-star in-state true freshman, with an offer list that represents a pretty big recruiting coup for a school like UTEP. He was buzzy in spring camp and at 6’2, 290 seems like he’ll be involved in some capacity.
At reserve nose, Tafuna has been a decent rotational player each of the last three seasons and took a medical redshirt to return for an extra year. His isolated numbers aren’t anything special but he is experienced playing college football and can be trusted with reps. Warren was brought in from Jacksonville State in the transfer portal this offseason, but both he and Bibbler have only played in garbage time throughout their careers. Lightfoot didn’t play much taking a redshirt last year. These guys all seem like bench pieces, barring a break out.
This seems like a perfectly fine/average Conference USA room with some returning experience. But I don’t think anyone in here would be part of a good P4 rotation, beyond maybe if Va’a makes a big jump in Year 3.
11. Rutgers
PROJECTED STARTING 3 TECHNIQUE: Malcolm Ray, sixth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Kyonte Hamilton, fourth-year senior
Projected Rotational Players: Zaire Angoy, third-year junior; Troy Rainey, fourth-year senior
Projected Depth: Keshon Griffin, fourth-year junior; Jordany Augustin, third-year sophomore; Henry Hughes Jr. fourth-year junior; JaSire Peterson, second-year freshman; Aaris Bethea, first-year freshman
Greg Schiano has built a solid defensive back-seven infrastructure in his second stint in Piscataway but has generally struggled to turn out good fronts. He’ll return a pair of good edge rushers this year, but there are a lot more issues in the middle.
Rutgers got replacement-level production from its 3-technique spot last year by bringing in one-year mercenary transfer Isaiah Iton. It’s following the same plan by bringing in Ray from Florida State. He made seven starts as part of the FSU rotation over the last four seasons, playing around 300 snaps each of the past three years. He has 60 career tackles, 10.0 for loss, and 3.5 sacks.
But his isolated player reveal a pretty middling player who has mostly produced through bulk snaps. He was a replacement-level starter as a redshirt freshman and sophomore before a dip last year, when his numbers as both a run defender and pass rusher were either slightly below average or plain bad among interior linemen. He doesn’t seem to do anything particularly well, but also has experience with Power 4 football and shouldn’t be an open liability.
Hamilton is the returning snap leader on the team, with 18 career starts over the last three seasons. He also played better in previous seasons, delivering solid production in 12 starts in 2022 but falling off last year. His profile displays almost no disruption (21 career pressures in 1,132 career snaps and a 2.9% pass-rush win rate in 2023, among the lowest of anyone to play big snaps over the past two years), but it also shows he does do a decent job not getting moved off the ball and was a good tackler. He was Rutgers’ leading snap-getter in the A gap last year and figures to be the primary nose again as Ray has played almost all of his career snaps as a 3-tech. Rutgers also moved Hamilton around the front, with 30 snaps aligned directly over the offensive tackle and 27 outside it as a true end. He’s a versatile piece but, again, not sure you’re getting much good play from the player who’s doing the moving around.
Two depth pieces return in Rainey and Angoy, who each played over 130 snaps in the rotation last year. Both were below average to poor in most categories, with middling isolated metrics in run defense and respective very poor 1.1% and 1.9% pass-rush win rates. The rest of the room has either only seen garbage-time snaps or not seen the field at all.
Hamilton and Ray are probably guys you’d want to be rotational options on a good defensive line, not starters. But they’re going to be forced into playing 400 or more snaps for this group. And the depth pieces don’t really seem to have much upside to surpass them. Pretty much every other area of Rutgers’ defense is solid or good, but this interior group seems like a liability.
10. Colorado
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Shane Cokes, sixth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Chidozie Nwankwo, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Anquin Barnes, fourth-year junior; Rayyan Buell, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Amari McNeill, fourth-year junior; Taurean Carter, sixth-year senior
Projected Depth: None
This is the third straight one of these for Colorado where I’m like, “What do you mean you only have [very low number of players] at [key position].”2
Also like most Colorado rooms, this one was built through the transfer portal.
Cokes came over last year from Dartmouth, where he was a very productive player at the FCS level over 20 starts. His first year in Boulder was less successful, with nine starts around a midseason benching, but he was a solid run defender and a dependable tackler pretty much the whole way through while playing over 500 snaps. His 29 tackles were the second-most on CU’s defensive line.
But his game at Darmouth was all about disruption — 59 combined pressures and 14 tackles for loss in two years as a starter there — and that completely went away at the FBS level. He provided almost no pass rush, with a 3.2% pass rush win rate that was 128th nationally out of the 143 qualifying IDLs to play over 200 snaps last year, and Cokes tallied just nine total pressures in 302 pass-rush opportunities. He also didn’t record a TFL in 232 run-defense snaps. He wasn’t a major liability in terms of getting blown off the ball against the run per the isolated stats, but at 275 pounds he was brought in to be a quick-twitch game-wrecker on the inside and simply wasn’t. That may improve with another year in the FBS, but it also doesn’t seem likely given how much he played last year with zero production. Though he should still be a competent run defender, at worst.
CU brought in Nwankwo this year from Houston to replace Leonard Payne Jr. in the starting lineup. Nwankwo is hyper-experienced, with 33 starts and 1,699 snaps over four seasons with the Cougars. He was a true, old-fashioned nose tackle, spending 959 of those snaps in the A gap: Nwankwo playing there will likely allow Cokes to spend a majority of his time as a 3-tech, which fits Cokes’ profile better (Cokes spent time at both nose and 3-tech last year) and might improve the incumbent’s production. Nwankwo is undersized for a nose role, at 5’11, 290, but the isolated numbers bear him out as a good to plus run defender from that spot for his entire career, regardless of the size limitations. His average depth of tackle last year tied for 12th nationally among qualifying interior linemen, and his run stop rate of 8.8% was 16th nationally. He hasn’t really ever provided much disruption or pass rush, but you know what you’re getting.
The top-end depth has some interesting players, too.
McNeil transferred over from Tennessee before last season and played 425 snaps as a 3-tech and will likely be the top back up for both positions. He led the defensive line in total tackles with 31 and generated 10 pressures. The underlying numbers suggested a worse player than that, especially as a pass rusher, but he had some decent efficiency as a run defender. Not bad for a No. 3 option.
The new transfers are Barnes, Buell, and Carter. Barnes was a big recruit at Alabama who didn’t play much in three years there, and Carter has been a rotational piece for multiple seasons at Arkansas whose profile is middling/uninspiring.
Buell is maybe the most intriguing of that incoming group. He started his career at a junior college before spending the last two seasons at Ohio, where he had a breakout campaign in 2023 with 16 pressures, six sacks and 13 stops. He was a late jump in the portal and finished as the No. 228 transfer in the country.
If his G5 numbers translate to the Big 12, Buell would provide some disruption/chaos creation this group sorely needs. He generated 12.5 tackles for loss in the run game last year on 30 total tackles — his average depth of tackle was -0.1 yards, which led all IDLs nationally. His sack/pass rush production was a bit of a red herring — six sacks on 16 pressures and a 6.7% win rate is not sustainable in any way — but he should have at least some ability to get past blocks and penetrate the backfield. He weighs under 280 pounds and was one of the worst tacklers nationally at his position group, so I’m not sure he can survive down-to-down against Power 4 opponents. But as a situational, 30-snap-a-game dynamo? Probably a pretty useful weapon who will generate big plays.
The issue with this group: These are the only players CU has. IDL is one of the positions where you see the most rotation, with teams usually working in at least four players and a lot of times up to six. And the Buffs have … six total players here? Cokes and Nwankwo are probably good starters (if sort of bland as run stoppers/cloggers), and McNeill and Buell are proven rotational guys with some pop. That’s a pretty solid top four; if everyone stays healthy, it’s an above-average group. But what happens if two players at this position get injured? Or more? Even before injuries, who is practicing on the scout team? This group’s success — or even survival — is going to necessitate perfect luck, which rarely occurs in college football. So I can’t put them any higher than this, even if I think the front-end of the rotation is better than people are giving credit to.
9. Wisconsin
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: James Thompson Jr, fifth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Curt Neal, third-year sophomore
Projected Rotational Starting 3-Techniques: Elijah Hills, fourth-year senior; Brandon Lane, fourth-year junior; Cade McDonald, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Ben Barten, fifth-year senior
Projected Depth: Jamel Howard, second-year freshman; Dillan Johnson, second-year freshman; Ernest Willor Jr., first-year freshman; Nolan Vils, second-year freshman; Hank Weber, first-year freshman
This unit lost its two starters and best players from last season to the SEC, with 3-tech Rodas Johnson transferring to Texas A&M and nose Gio Paez going to LSU. Some rotational experience returns, but little of it was good in 2023.
Thompson played 437 snaps last year as the top reserve defensive lineman, making a pretty impressive 20 tackles with four sacks on 18 pressures. But only about half of those snaps were on the inside as he also rotated in at defensive end, which is where a majority of his production came. His run defense grade from PFF on the interior was just 366th out of 529 IDLs nationally to play at least 200 snaps last year. While he did generate an impressive sack total, it came on a dead-average 5.7% win rate, and all four of his sacks came from when he was lined up outside — none of his actual good production rushing the passer came at the position he’ll now be starting at.
Neal played 121 snaps as the No. 2 nose behind Paez last year, making one start, and saw an additional 141 snaps as a reserve 3-tech. His profile shows him as a decent/fine line holder and tackler last year, but he generated little disruption in the run game or as a pass rusher. He also is only 6’0, 285 pounds, which is pretty small for a gap-plugging nose, even in 2024. A guy like that pretty much has to be detonating blocks or winning one-on-one to be successful. There’s little of that in his profile so far, but he’s also only a third-year player and was a decent recruit. But the staff also likely expected to develop him for another season behind Paez, and he’ll now get thrust into major snaps a year early.
What the unit does have is some proven depth. Barten became a surprise breakout pass rusher from the inside last year, totaling eight pressures in 36 total pass rush attempts as a backup at both spots. He’s also the biggest player in the rotation at 305 pounds. He’ll have to translate that production to a bigger role.
Hills and Lane are both veteran FCS transfers brought in to fill out the room after the starters departed. Hills, from Albany, played nearly 800 snaps last year and generated 18 stops and 16 pressures, but his rates of producing those totals per snap and underlying efficiency were pretty poor. He also missed 24.3% of his tackle attempts last year, which I can’t imagine gets better as he moves up a level. Lane was a get-off-the-blocks penetrator at Steven F. Austin, where he had 17 total stops, and also had decent efficiency as a pass rusher. Both have good size to play in the FBS.
McDonald has only played in garbage time in his first four years but could fill out the back end of the rotation. Howard, Johnson, and Vils didn’t see the field last year, and Willor and Weber are low three-stars who don’t seem likely to play in 2024. No clue what they are.
Wisconsin and coach Luke Fickell each have a history of developing defensive talent, so Thompson and/or Neal playing better than last year wouldn’t be a shock. But it’s also a pretty uninspiring starting duo based on what those players produced last year, in a conference that demands elite play up the middle. The depth is an advantage, but there are some translation questions there, too. This unit got worse after the Johnson and Paez transfers and didn’t really replace their play at the top. It’s hard to see its ceiling as anything but mediocre, with a much-worse, disaster case possible, too.
8. USC
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Nate Clifton, fifth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Bear Alexander, third-year junior
Projected Rotational 3-Technique: Elijah Hughes, second-year sophomore
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Kobe Pepe, fifth-year senior
Projected Depth: Devan Thompkins, third-year sophomore; Kaylon Miller, first-year freshman; Jide Abasiri, first-year freshman
Alexander came over from Georgia last year as a top-15 overall transfer and put up a decent season on an otherwise hilariously bad defensive line. Southern Cal appears to have shored up the spot next to him in the portal this year but still projects to have some pretty significant depth issues.
The Trojans almost lost Alexander in the spring, when they reportedly had to engage in a recruiting battle to keep him from entering the portal for the second straight season. Finishing the season with 6.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks, Alexander was a first-team Pac-12 selection, though his underlying play and tape show his reputation is a bit inflated.
First, the good: Alexander is an elite athlete for his size (6’3, 313) and the nose tackle position. He’s a great mover both in a straight line and laterally, looking more like a linebacker when chasing people down the line or on pass rush stunts (he’s No. 90 in the videos below):
That guy’s 313! The athleticism combines with some solid strength to give him a pretty devastating bull rush against players who can’t physically match him. His explosion off the line puts less athletic blockers on their heels, preventing them from setting a good base and allowing Alexander to muscle/push past them. His most successful moments were all essentially this:
But that’s also the problem: If he couldn’t brute force his way past people, he rarely had a plan beyond trying a bull rush again. He demonstrated few to no counter moves, and teams with good athletes along the line and good coaching neutralized him:
In the rep above, Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson — a second-round pick to Oakland in the NFL draft — rejects the bull rush and sends him backward, and Alexander just runs at a different Oregon blocker and tries it again, which also doesn’t work. This manifested itself in the run game, too: When good o-lineman or double teams got their hands on him, he often just got worked off the line of scrimmage with little recourse or ability to hold his ground.
He also had a bad tendency when beaten to try this weird spin away from the blocker that often resulted in him leaving his assigned gap and giving up a big play. The isolated data doesn’t really back him up either, with poor data against the run and just average production against the past. He did win his pass rush matchups pretty frequently, with a 9.7% win rate that was 69th out of 293 qualifying IDLs nationally, and he had 32 pressures, tied for 13th among all IDLs last year. Some of his reputation, especially as a pass rusher, was warranted.
A little bit can be explained away by his responsibilities in the A gap and the defense he was playing in. He spent almost all of his time as a nose tackle, taking on two blockers, and USC also deployed quite a bit of Bear front with him lined up directly over a center. Those aren’t easy spots to win from. Ohio State, an entrant much higher on this list, took a similar player and lined him up at 3-tech to generate easier matchups, but USC essentially let Alexander die on the vine in a role that didn’t fit his game at all. In addition to having an uncreative coordinator who didn’t do much to make his life easier, he was playing with teammates who couldn’t take any pressure off him. In one rep I saw against Utah, the Utah o-line hits him with three different blockers on a zone play because they know Alexander is the only real threat and the rest of USC’s front won’t be able to punish them for it:
He should have more help this year, as Clifton comes over from Vanderbilt. He’s very experienced, with 93 career tackles and 620 snaps in the SEC last year. His best skill is as a dependable run clogger who doesn’t get moved easily, with a 1.9-yard average depth of tackle on some pretty bad Vandy lines. He’s not a very efficient pass rusher but did have 18 pressures last year and has a career 7.5 sacks. He should at least know what he’s doing and provide replacement-level starter play, which should free Alexander up some, too. Hughes played in eight games last year as a true freshman, mostly as a designated pass rusher, and has a 12.2% pass rush win rate that would be among the tops for IDLs nationally. He’s already a useful situational piece but could be in for a second-year bump as a player overall and crack the rotation.
Beyond that, Pepe is a career backup/practice-squad player, and the rest of the room is unproven sophomores or freshman. And there are only seven players total on the roster for this position.
Overall, Alexander is a power-style penetrator from the A gap with a good bull rush who struggles when asked to an every-down star of a defensive line. He’s a bit limited to just that penetrating role, but that’s still a valuable player who would be useful on any defense. The bigger issue is that the poor play of the rest of the line around him forced him from being that more specialized disruptor into that savior-of-the-whole-unit player that offenses can focus on. More help from Clifton or Hughes could let him be a specialist and have a hyper-efficient season. New coordinator D’Anton Lynn seems like a good coach, too. But even if Alexander is maximized, the depth is in deep trouble if they have to go much beyond the top three.
7. Illinois
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUES: Dennis Briggs, Jr., seventh-year senior; Alex Bray, second-year sophomore
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: TeRah Edwards, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Gentle Hunt, fourth-year senior; Eddie Tuerk, first-year freshman; Jeremiah Warren, second-year freshman
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Enyce Sledge, third-year sophomore
Projected Depth: Pat Farrell, second-year freshman; Angelo McCullom, first-year freshman; Demetrius John, first-year freshman; Henry Engel, second-year freshman
Illinois had arguably one of the best interior fronts in the country last year, with Jer’Zhan Newton going high in the NFL draft, fellow starting 3-tech Keith Randolph Jr. making an All-Big Ten team and Denzel Daxton grading out as one of the best run-stuffing nose tackles in the Power 4 conferences. The bill comes due a bit in 2024, as the Illini will have to replace all three starters and all of their top depth, losing 2,239 of their 2,465 IDL snaps from last year.
Illinois operates with a Bear/Penny front defense that aligns five defensive linemen across the offensive front, utilizing two 3-techniques over each offensive guard and a true nose tackle over the center. Edwards returns the only real experience, recording 14 tackles and a sack as last year’s No. 2 nose tackle. He’s played 400 snaps over the last two season as a true nose, grading out as a good run defender and block eater. I don’t super buy in to the broader PFF “grades,” but he did log a grade that would have ranked 48th among all 221 starting IDLs last year, had he qualified. He’s also a decent pass rusher for being 6’2, 325 pounds and playing a position where he’s constantly double teamed, with a 3.5% win rate. Though there are always questions when a career backup steps in as a starter, his profile likely indicates he’ll be a 1:1 replacement for Daxton.
Sed McConnell was last year’s top reserve 3-tech for Illinois as a sophomore and seemed likely to move into one of the starting jobs, but he transferred in the winter to Boston College. Illinois brought in Briggs from Florida State at the spot, who has 1,425 career snaps over six seasons in the rotation there but a profile of up-and-down production. He was an excellent run defender in 2019 as a redshirt freshman and looked like a future star, fell way off in 2020, reemerged as a pass-rush specialist in ’21 and ’22, and spent last season as a back-end of the rotation guy who wasn’t good at anything. A complete enigma. If Illinois gets the player Briggs was in 2021-22 — when he had respective 20% and 14.3% pass-rush win rates that were among the tops in the nation for IDLs — he can probably replace a lot of the havoc Newton was known for causing. If they get the player Briggs has been for the other seasons of his career, he’s probably just an experienced but middling starter. I’d lean toward trusting this Illinois staff to get the most out of a 3-tech.
Beyond that, it’s tough to really tell anything definitive about this group.
The other 3-tech spot would seem to be between Bray and Hunt. Bray appeared in eight games last year as a true freshman but only played 32 snaps on defense at the back end of the rotation. It’s hard to develop any sort of profile off 32 snaps, but he was a mid-three star as a recruit and has good size, and the staff elected to play him last year over the other people in the room, which means something. Hunt is an incoming transfer from Florida A&M, who was second-team All-SWAC last year. He was a three-year starter for the Rattlers and had a consistent profile as an excellent run defender and good pass rusher all the way through. His 10.7% stop rate was eighth in the FCS last year, and he also generated 21 pressures on a 10.3% pass-rush win rate. If his play translates to the Big Ten, the job is probably his, though I expect they’ll rotate bodies here regardless of who is the “starter.”
Tuerk could also be in that mix. He was a big four-star recruiting win for Illinois who is already 290 pounds as an 18-year-old and physically ready to see the field. Sledge is a transfer in from Auburn with 15 career snaps and is the most likely candidate to be the No. 2 nose.
The rest of the players are low three-stars or walk-ons in their first or second years with the program who haven’t played. There are a lot of them, and some competent depth pieces will probably emerge.
If Briggs and Hunt hit big as transfers, this could be a good, or even very good, group. I do give this Illinois staff some benefit of the doubt for developing this position, as they’ve done a pretty stellar job since Bret Bielema took over. But with so much departing experience, this feels like a reset year, and it’s hard to put them over any of the established or higher-upside teams for the 2024 season.
6. Purdue
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUES: Joe Anderson, sixth-year senior; Jeffrey M’Ba fifth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Cole Brevard, sixth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Jamarius Dinkins, fourth-year junior; Damarjhe Lewis, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Mo Omonode, third-year senior
Projected Depth: Joe Strickland, third-year sophomore; Jamarrion Harkless, second-year freshman; Drake Carlson, second-year freshman; Caleb Irving, first-year freshman; Demeco Kennedy, first-year freshman; Reese Hill, first-year freshman; Elijah Taylor, first-year freshman
The Boilermakers’ wider defensive line took a hit when its best player — and a likely future first-round draft pick — edge Nic Scourton, transferred to Texas A&M. But along the interior only, several rotational pieces with experience return to create a deep, if largely unexciting, group.
Purdue coach Ryan Walters also employs the five-down Bear/Penny front like Illinois — his previous job was as the defensive coordinator there — so Purdue will play nearly all of its snaps with two 3-techs and a nose on the field. Last year, they operated the interior of the line essentially like a hockey line shift with two — and sometimes even three — platoons to keep players fresh. Only Brevard returns from that top group, but the entirety of the second and third groups come back, including players in M’Ba and Omonde who were arguably the room’s best.
The goal of the Walters-style defensive structure is to line up one defensive lineman over every offensive lineman, trying to prevent double teams and line slides and generate one-on-one matchups for his defenders. Omonde was the No. 2 nose tackle but was the player on the inside most capable of winning those battles and the best athlete. He was third on the team in pass-rush win rate and also generated the third most pressures on the team with 16, trailing only edges Scourton and Kydran Jenkins in both categories, despite playing only around 250 snaps.
For his size and position he was just an excellent mover, able to both turn and run in a straight line and to bend around corners, a pretty rare skill for a nose tackle. Walters used that movement skill set creatively, sending him on big looping stunts from the A gap where he had to go from the center of the formation to try to run around offensive tackles3 (Omonde is No. 92 in the clip below):
His production only totaled about 14 total tackles and two sacks, but it came on just 266 snaps as he rotated in. PFF had him as the No. 14-graded IDL nationally as a pass rusher. He was a below-average player against the run, which is probably why the 6’5, 335-pound Brevard was/is the starter. Brevard is more of just a clogger/eater with few disruptive or exciting plays, but he did hold the line well with a 1.4 average depth of tackle, which was top 100 nationally at the position. A duo of Brevard as the early down nose and Omonde as the pass-rush specialist and rotational guy is pretty solid.
Starters will have to be replaced at the 3-technique spots, but both M’Ba and Anderson played over 280 snaps last year in the rotation. On the film I watched, M’Ba looked like the most purely explosive and strong player along the interior, generating push and showing an ability to hold the line, even against elite players. Here he (#0) is against Michigan, stacking up an all-conference guard, holding him up and then shedding to make a tackle:
PFF weirdly gave him a horrible grade, even though a lot of his isolated metrics were fine. It’s possible he was just bad in the games I didn’t watch, but that was a bit puzzling. Anderson was the opposite, where he got pushed around and lost consistently in the games I saw but was well regarded by PFF as a run defender. He also only generated only eight pressures on the year.
Both should be fine starters, though neither is probably a plus player. To fill in the depth behind them, Dinkins comes over in the portal from Kentucky, where he saw action in 20 games and put up a decent profile, and Lewis was previously a rotational player before injuries shortened both of his last two seasons. There’s also seven sophomore or freshmen at the position who have yet to really play, any one of whom could break out into a big role.
None of these players is probably an all-conference candidate, but Omonde is a cool player and pass-rush specialist who should be fun to watch, and I think Brevard, M’Ba, and Anderson can form a good trio around him. If they try to line-shift here again, they could run into some issues with deep depth, but the top line and initial reserves are all pretty solid.
5. Indiana
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: James Carpenter, sixth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: CJ West, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Marcus Burris, Jr., fourth-year junior; Tyrique Tucker, third-year sophomore
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Robby Harrison, third-year sophomore
Projected Depth: Race Stewart, fourth-year junior; J’Mari Monette, third-year sophomore; Felix Meeks, fifth-year senior; Aden Cannon, third-year sophomore
Much like the other position groups in these rankings, new coach Curt Cignetti has built this room by hitting the transfer portal hard for raw experience and also bringing over the best players from his former team, James Madison. The results here are much more promising.
West, from Kent State, and Carpenter, from JMU, were two of the best interior linemen at the lower-conference level in 2023, with West finishing first among all Group of 5 IDLs last season in PFF’s overall grade and Carpenter seventh. And both come with major experience, with a combined 3,509 career snaps over 72 starts. They were the 28th- and 29th-ranked defensive linemen in the portal per On3, but their profiles are much better than that.
West, at 6-2 and 315 pounds, could be a sleeper candidate to make an All-Big Ten team. He was primarily used as a run-stuffer at Kent State but was also hyper efficient when asked to rush the passer. He spent his first two seasons as a starter as an exclusive nose tackle for Kent State, which kept his counting stats down, but he switched to a primary 3-technique last year and put together his best play. He remained an elite run defender — his 8.8 run-play stop percentage was tied for 16th nationally among starting IDLs, and his 0.9 average depth of tackle was 24th — while also upping his pass rush efficiency as he faced more matchups with offensive guards and tackles than he did as a nose tackle. His actual pass rush productivity was better in 2021 and 2022 than 2023 — 21 pressures and five sacks in ‘21 and 24 pressures and one sack in ‘22, compared to 14 and two last year — but saw his best pass rush win-rate nearly double from 6% to 11%. With Carpenter more undersized, he’ll likely be IU’s answer in the A gap. But he can also definitely be a serviceable split-front player.
He also has a history of performing well against higher-level competition, individually grading out essentially the same over the last two years in games against Washington, Oklahoma, Georgia, UCF, and Arkansas. I’m not quite sure how this guy got past some of the bigger programs who might have needed interior help. Two FCS players with similar statistical profiles in Penn’s Joey Slackman and Harvard’s Thor Griffin were the Nos. 39 and 128 overall players in the portal and ended up at Florida and Louisville, respectively. West was No. 341. He did have offers from Michigan and Miami in the transfer portal but didn’t seem to be a priority. IU might have snagged a very underrated find here.
Carpenter, a second-team All-Sun Belt selection each of the last two seasons, comes with a few more questions as he transitions to upper-level play but was undeniably an Ironman for JMU over four previous seasons as a starter. He led all interior linemen with 803 snaps last year (the next closest had 749) and played 625 in 2022. He lacks some of the down-to-down efficiency of West but instead brings just raw volume and more disruption: His 37 total pressures were 10th nationally among all IDLs, and his 31 stops were eighth, but his production rates weren’t quite as impressive, with a 7.3% stop percentage (44th nationally) and a 7.9% pass rush win rate (43rd nationally). Those are good totals, but they largely came from him just being on the field a ton.
Translation to the Big Ten is also harder to see for Carpenter than it is for West. He’s just small, at 6-2, 284 pounds. It’s hard to exist as a 3-tech at that size in the Big Ten unless you are just always first off the ball. He might have been able to be that explosive in the Sun Belt, but Big Ten offensive guards and tackles are a different animal. And in his only two games against power-conference teams — vs. a bad Louisville in 2022 and vs. a bad Virginia in 2023 — he was essentially a non-factor, even isolating his individual production. It’s only two games, but that’s also not promising. Still, I think he could be a decent backfield disruptor at the Power 4 level.
There is some decent depth, too. Burris, a former top 150 recruit from Texas A&M, made eight starts as a redshirt sophomore for Indiana last year, putting up decent efficiency as a pass-rusher with 10 pressures and a 6.1% pass-rush win rate. He’s also a bit undersized at 286 and profiles as more of a havoc-type like Carpenter. He’s also likely to be more efficient in a reserve/situational rusher role this year than needing to eat snaps as an every-down 3-tech as he did last season. Tucker is another transfer from James Madison who has some experience, with five starts over the last two years. He also profiles as a decent pass rusher and is a bit bigger at 295. He primarily played in the B gaps at JMU but also seems more likely to play the nose as a sub for West. Harrison, a transfer from Arizona State, also made four appearances for the Sun Devils last year and at 311 pounds seems likely to be in the rotation.
The rest of the players lack any experience. Stewart, Monette, and Cannon are players who have each been in the Indiana program for several seasons but have never played, outside of one snap last year for Stewart. Meeks is an incoming transfer who has spent time at Indiana Wesleyan, Ball State, and Purdue. Not likely there’s anything there beyond a scout-team player.
While there are always translation questions of G5 players coming up to the P4, it’s hard to not see this room having undergone massive improvement in the offseason under Cignetti through the pickups of West and Carpenter. With the translation questions, I can’t really put them higher than any of the other proven Big Ten rooms, but this seems like the most effective transfer portal usage at the position of any NU opponent.
4. UCLA
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Keanu Williams, fourth-year junior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Jay Toia, fourth-year senior
PROJECTED ROTATIONAL PLAYERS: Gary Smith III, fifth-year senior; Sitiveni Havili Kaufusi, fifth-year senior
PROJECTED DEPTH: Collins Acheampong, second-year freshman; Devin Aupiu, fourth-year junior; A.J. Fuimaono, second-year freshman; Grant Buckey, second-year freshman; Siale Taupaki, fifth-year senior
This will be the most veteran group NU will face next season — the Bruins return all but 172 of their 1,208 IDL snaps from last year — though most of the returning play is just solid-to-good and not special. Also worth noting this will likely be the largest front NU will face next season, with the top three players in the rotation all over 310 pounds.
This group rotated Williams, Toia, and Smith for equal snaps, but Williams and Toia are the returning “starters.” They’ve combined for 34 starts over the last two seasons. Each appeared in all 13 games last year for the Bruins.
Williams transferred in from Oregon ahead of 2023 and was an above-average run defender in his first season getting real snaps, a solid ground-holder and tackler who provided a little disruption, too. His run defense stop rate of 7.5% was tied for 35th nationally out of the 235 IDLs to play at least 150 snaps last year. But he was also one of the worst pass rushers among the top-end of this list, with a win rate of just 3.9%, and he has just eight career pressures in 375 career snaps across the two schools.
Toia — who entered the transfer portal in the winter but elected to return to UCLA — is a big dawg at 325 pounds who spent almost half of his 383 snaps last season as a true A-gap nose tackle. That limited his counting stats, as he was often just asked to eat blocks and let others make plays in that role. But he held ground well and was a good pass rusher for a true nose (a 5.2% win rate operating from that spot is solid). He was a huge liability as a tackler, missing 21.2% of his attempts, 192nd nationally among IDLs. He also missed 17.6% of his tackles as a starter in 2022, so it wasn’t a one-year blip. His job is a little harder to evaluate through these stats, but he was also letting ball-carriers past him a bit.
Smith didn’t start any games last year but played only four fewer snaps on the season than Williams, working in at both spots. He has the best isolated statistical profile here, possibly good enough to push one of the returning starters from the lineup. His 9.4% stop rate was 13th nationally, and he nearly doubled Williams’ pass-rush pressures on a better win rate. And after missing 19% of his tackles in 2022, he improved that to 5.0% last year to rank among the top at the position. He led all UCLA IDLs with 21 tackles and 3.0 tackles for loss. But he only ever saw the field for 20-30 snaps a game, and it didn’t seem to be injury related per any reporting. He seems like the best player in the room, but coaches also elected to play the other two guys more than him.
Kafusi is the other rotational returnee from last year, though his was a lesser role at just 105 snaps. He was a good run defender and didn’t miss a tackle all season, but his isolated profile also suggests he was getting moved off the ball more than the other three players (3.7 average depth of tackle, which would have been 215th among all IDLs had he qualified).
The reserves have little experience but do have some talent. Acheampong is a transfer in from Miami who didn’t play at all there but was a high four-star prep player in the ‘23 class who made 24/7 Sports’ “Freaks” list. He’s 6’8, 270 pounds and may play more at edge rusher, but it seems likely he’ll play significant snaps on the inside, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became the No. 4 option or was used in pass-rush packages. Fuimaono, Buckey and Aupui all saw their only action last year in garbage time; the first two were redshirting true freshmen and could work their way into the rotation if they’ve developed behind the scenes. Taupaki is a converted offensive lineman who seems like more of a scout-team player.
The experience alone probably makes this an above-average to good group, and all the players are solid, though I don’t expect much game-changing play from anyone here. I’m ranking UCLA here more because of the sum of its parts than the individual parts: The Bruins’ run defense was top 20 nationally last year, with offenses generating -0.04 EPA on run plays against them, a better figure than both Nebraska and Iowa in 2023. I don’t think they’ll provide much pass rush or disruption, and unless Smith emerges as a high-end player I don’t see an all-conference type of guy here. But three good run stuffers and lots of depth with potential is a pretty well-built room.
3. Iowa
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Aaron Graves, third-year junior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Yahya Black, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Luke Gaffney, third-year sophomore
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Jeremiah Pittman, fourth-year junior
Projected Depth: Jeff Bowie, fourth-year junior; Maddux Borcherding-Johnson, second-year freshman; Will Hubert, second-year freshman; Chase Brackney, first-year freshman; Trent Cakerice, first-year freshman; Ryan Kuennen, first-year freshman
Iowa loses three-year starter Logan Lee but returns the rest of its snaps at the position and replaces Lee with a talented, experienced player with a similar profile, so don’t expect much of a drop-off.
Black comes back as a starter after earning an honorable mention All-Big Ten last year, finishing with 51 tackles, 3.0 sacks and 5.0 TFLs. Iowa’s defense typically prefers lighter, penetrating IDLs but Black has legit NFL size at 6’5, 315 while still generating havoc. His 22 pressures tied for eighth in the conference at the position and his 26 run defense stops tied for first.
His production as a pass rusher was a little inflated by him playing 639 snaps, as that eighth-best total on pressures in the conference at the position came on just a 4.0% win rate, which was 51st. That figure is probably due for some regression. But he earned every bit of his dominance as a run defender, and would be on the shortlist for best run-defending IDLs in the Big Ten. Also worth noting he had three batted passes from his position, which tied for fourth in the Big Ten.
Iowa also overwhelmingly operates in a split front with no true nose, but the times it does Black is the player who will shift inside.
Graves will move into the 3-tech spot departed by Lee but isn’t new to the field, having played in nearly every game of his two years in the program and logging 37 tackles and 4.5 TFLs in 408 snaps last season. His isolated metrics show he can probably replace some of the disruption leaving with Lee — he had 18 stops and 17 pressures — but some of his rate stats also weren’t particularly great. His stop percentage on run plays (5.4%) and pass rush win rate (6.6%) were pretty much dead average among IDL starters last year. He seems to be a popular pick among Iowa fans to breakout into a star this year, which I’m not totally sure you can buy from his past production, but this is just his third season so a jump is possible. And he at worst should be a good starter.
The depth here is a bit thin. Pittman played 139 snaps last year but was a significantly worse option than the other three players ahead of him, with below-average metrics as a run defender and pass rusher. He also missed 28.6% of his tackle attempts last year, which finished 508th out of 529 qualifying interior defensive lineman. Gaffney played one snap on defense last year, and the deeper depth is a fourth-year player who hasn’t seen the field and five first- or second-year freshmen.
Iowa’s defense rotates among the least in the country,4 so that may be less of an issue here. But if the Hawkeyes don’t stay as healthy at the position as they have in past seasons and have to tap into some of these freshmen, there could be some problems should someone not emerge.
Overall, Black is a plus-plus starter who could contend for all-conference honors, and Graves is an established solid option with upside to break out into more. That’s a pretty elite starting duo, but I do ding this group a bit for the lack of experience/quality further down. I trust the Hawkeyes’ defensive development program to crank out competent play from somewhere in that mass of bodies, but it could be some rough going behind Black and Graves early in the season, and a major injury to either or both would set off major alarm bells.
2. Nebraska
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Ty Robinson, sixth-year senior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Nash Hutmacher, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Techniques: Elijah Jeudy, fourth-year junior; Riley Van Poppel, second-year sophomore; Vincent Jackson, second-year freshman; Brodie Tagaloa, third-year sophomore
Projected Rotational Nose Tackles: Sua Lefotu, second-year freshman
Projected Depth: AJ Rollins, fourth-year junior; Mason Goldman, second-year freshman; David Borchers, second-year freshman
In 2022, opposing offenses generated around 0.21 expected points added and had a 52% success rate every time they used a running play against Nebraska’s defense. Here’s what that looked like nationally:5
With largely the same personnel for NU, the only changes bringing in a new defensive staff and switching to a more attacking 3-3-5 scheme, those numbers fell to 0.03 EPA and a 36% success rate in one offseason:
Nebraska’s run-defense turnaround — one of the most unlikely transformations of any unit on a college football team last season — is a testament to how scheme and deployment can completely change players’ performance. Talent trumps scheme, but talent deployed poorly keeps it from excelling. In Erik Chinander’s 4-2-5, deep-coverage-shell system, his interior defensive linemen were asked to hold up blockers at the line of scrimmage and play and read multiple gaps to take run responsibilities off safeties often playing far from the line and dropping deep into zone shells. It was defined by its staticness and passivity up front, requiring players to read-and-react to what the offense was doing. Under new coordinator Tony White, the interior linemen’s responsibilities became about attacking: Their jobs were now to penetrate individual gaps, slanting horizontally and constantly trying to get into the backfield. No more reading and patience — just go.
The change weaponized Nebraska’s two previously nondescript starting interior linemen into one one of the most disruptive duos in the country.
Hutmacher was perhaps the biggest beneficiary of a scheme change of any player in college football last year. Pushed around for much of his first year as a contributor in 2022 when asked to hold up blockers under Chinander, the move to the 3-3-5 allowed him to utilize his explosive first step off the ball and natural understanding of body leverage to become, quite simply, one of the best pure nose tackles in college football.
His surface-level numbers are pretty impressive for a player often lined up directly over the center and taking on double teams, with 40 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks, but his isolated numbers make him stand out more: His 22 stops as a run defender were tied for 38th out of 529 IDLs to play at least 200 snaps last year, and his 23 pressures as a pass rusher were 46th out of the same sample. It’s pretty rare to get a player who can combine the size/strength to be a run stuffer/block eater and the athleticism needed to be a gap-shooter and a pass rusher, but Hutmacher can.
The tape all backs it up, too. I’m not a defensive line evaluation expert by any means, but in almost all of the things I look for, Hutmacher excels.
Are you explosive off the ball and into an offensive lineman’s pads before they’re into yours? Can you end block attempts before they begin and push offensive linemen backwards? All checks (Hutmacher is wearing No. 0 in the clips below):
Against rush plays, do you create backfield disruption and displace ball-carriers away from their designed gaps, forcing the rush wide into other defenders? Check:
When facing double teams from blockers, are you able to hold your ground at the line of scrimmage without getting pushed significantly backwards? Check:
As a pass rusher, do you demonstrate rush moves, technicality, hand usage, and counters and generally seem to have a plan for what you’re doing or if you’re stymied? Check:
Hutmacher is obviously a good and explosive athlete for a guy who weighs 330 pounds — he’s fast enough that White regularly used him as a looper on stunts; the only other nose I saw do that was Purdue’s Omonde — but he generates most of his success by combining that size/athleticism with a deep understanding of body leverage and flexibility. His engagements with blockers are constantly just a fight for him to get lower than his opponent and push them off-balance. He was a former national champion heavyweight wrestler in his prep days — and moonlit for the Nebraska wrestling team this year — and you can really see that shine through when engaged. It almost looks like he’s grappling with his opponents on the mat at times.
Nose tackles aren’t likely to get media attention or casual fan props, but Hutmacher truly is an elite, top-100-type player in the sport. It’s been a while since Nebraska has had one of those, and I’m excited to watch him next season more than any player in the last nine or so years.6
Robinson wasn’t on that level but put together a very good season. The move to the 3-3-5 also was a plus for him; his play has always been more penetration and disruption than down-to-down stoutness, and playing opposite a block-eater like Hutmacher and in a scheme heavy in slanting and gap-shooting let him more often show off his play-wrecking explosiveness/strength combo:
The best part of his game is as a pass rusher. His 28 pressures last year in rush situations were 23rd nationally among all IDLs and are eighth among all returning players at the position. In addition to his raw size/athleticism combo at 6-6, 310 pounds, Robinson has good hands as a rusher and a few dependable moves. He has an especially nice long-arm swim/swat he uses a lot to knock blockers off balance and push past them:
With his long arms on a 6’6 frame, Robinson is also one of the best at the position at batting down balls at the line of scrimmage, with his four swats tied for fourth nationally last year.
He’s had some difficulties throughout his career in the run game, though, and those didn’t seem to improve much last year; they just weren’t as glaring in a new scheme that didn’t ask him to hold up in gaps as often. When Robinson wasn’t able to penetrate like the above plays, he had a tendency to play too high and upright, making him stiff and movable. Where Hutmacher is pretty much always shooting off the ball under someone’s pads at full extension with his knees bent, Robinson too often ends up playing standing straight up with his knees virtually locked, making him easy for blockers to shove, move or topple:
A one-off rep isn’t the most fair comparison, but for an illustration of what I mean, look at the postures and positioning of Robinson, on the left, and Hutmacher, on the right, as they both take on a wide zone play from Iowa.
Robinson’s upper body is near a 45 degree angle from the legs up with head and shoulder pads even and engaged with the blocker. The only real way he can win from that position would be to essentially shove his man backwards (which, to be fair, he does a lot). But contrast that with Hutmacher, who is closer to a 90 degree angle and has his shoulder pads under his blocker’s with his hands engaged under the pads, almost like a wrestler locked on with someone. Using more arm extension would probably be the preferred technique, but Hutmacher still is in a much better position to win with more options to shed the block in either direction than Robinson is.
He also continued to be a poor tackler, missing 17.9% of his tackle attempts last year, which was 169th out of the 220 IDLs to play at least 400 snaps last season. He also missed 22.6% of his attempts in 2022. A lot of it is missing ball carriers in the hole or sacks from quarterbacks able to run away from him, but he does struggle to break down and get people on the ground:
Some of this is small potatoes/relative complaints; his tape or data doesn’t show him being an open liability against the run. And his average depth of tackle was 0.4 yards, 38th at the position nationally out of nearly 400 players — he wasn’t getting blown backwards. But he is a little less stout and technically sound than Hutmacher, and he’s probably benefiting more from playing next to a player like that and in this one specific scheme. Though even if he were bad against the run, his profile as a pass rusher and penetrator is good enough you’re willing to live with a little bit of it.
Jeudy and Van Poppel again project to be the top subs. Each played about 125 snaps last year as the first IDLs off the bench, filling in at both spots along the interior. Both probably profile better as 3-techs in the future — each is at around 280 pounds — but are capable of playing nose in a 3-3-5. Jeudy, in his first year with the program from Texas A&M, was quietly pretty good in a small sample, generating a 7.3% run stop percentage and a 1.4-yard average depth of tackle, both above average nationally. He might have been the most efficient per-play pass rusher in the group, full stop, with a 10.1% win rate that was three percentage points higher than any other IDL and eight pressures. It will be interesting to see if he gets subbed in more in situational rush downs this year. Van Poppel’s isolated stats showed him to be pretty poor/ineffective, and on his tape he often played too high and lost leverage to blockers getting under his pads. He was also a true freshman playing in the Big Ten, and his recruiting pedigree would tell us he has talent, so as some of the technique stuff gets corrected I would expect a better version of him in Year 2.
Other players will likely work in, as Nebraska utilized a lot of bodies along the d-line last season and will have better depth to do it again this year. Lefotu and Jackson both played a handful of games while redshirting, and Tagaloa missed all of last season with an injury after switching over from tight end. But all three were praised by the staff as having made big improvements in the offseason and seem like options to provide more rotational depth in 2024 before presumably moving up the ladder next year. Carroll, in particular, had some nice snaps in the game he played against Iowa where he was able to generate displacement and move the line. He seems primed to be more involved in 2024.
Rollins only played in garbage time as a convert from tight end, and Goldman and Borchers didn’t play last year.
Also worth noting Nebraska’s defensive line positioning in the 3-3-5 is a bit more flexible than other teams, and de-facto edges like Kai Wallin and Cam Lenhardt also spent some time playing in the 3-tech spot last year. So there will be other d-line combos not mentioned here.
Overall, Nebraska has arguably the best nose tackle in the country, plus a running mate for him who may generate enough flashy pass-rushing stats to contend for all-conference honors, even if the underlying data isn’t that impressive. Add in some quality depth from Jeudy and a few talented young breakout candidates in Van Poppel, Jackson, Lefotu, and Tagaloa, and this should be one of the five or ten best interior groups in the country.
1. Ohio State
PROJECTED STARTING 3-TECHNIQUE: Tyleik Williams, fourth-year junior
PROJECTED STARTING NOSE TACKLE: Ty Hamilton, fifth-year senior
Projected Rotational 3-Technique: Hero Kanu, third-year sophomore; Tywone Malone, fourth-year junior
Projected Rotational Nose Tackle: Kayden McDonald, second-year sophomore
Projected Depth: Jason Moore, second-year freshman; Will Smith Jr., second-year freshman; Eric Mensah, first-year freshman; Bryce Prater, fourth-year junior
Nebraska loses out on this list’s top spot by having arguably the nation’s top interior defensive line on its schedule.7 Ohio State returns a likely preseason All-America pick in Williams, another plus-starter with two years of experience in Hamilton, and a backup in Kanu who would likely contend for all-conference honors were he on any other roster in the country.
The Buckeyes last season deployed their front with the 295-pound Hamilton playing at nose and the 6’3, 325-pound Williams playing at 3-tech, in a bid to avoid having their best player, Williams, stuck eating double teams in the middle of the formation and able to perform as more of a playmaker (paging USC’s new defensive coordinator). He did: Williams finished tied for fifth nationally in total stops with 26 among the 544 IDLs who played at least 200 snaps last season, while also finishing 60th as a pass rusher with 22 pressures. Players his size are usually slow gap eaters, but shows rare explosiveness and athleticism for the 3-tech position regardless of size and is pretty much always the first player off the ball, and from there he uses his strength and push to create chaos in the backfield (he’s No. 91 in the videos below):
The athleticism oozes off the tape. He’s a good runner, with OSU even dropping him into coverage on some fire-zone pressures last year. He’s also got a kind of squat build that is tough for linemen to handle.
But he isn’t only an athlete, either, showing some signs of technique. He plays with leverage and is great at getting under o-linemen’s pads and reaching full extension with his arms to drive after engagement, and he keeps all contact from blockers high. He recognizes some run-game concept patterns and responds. And as a pass rusher, he uses his hands while engaged and seems to have a plan and counter-moves if he’s initially stymied:
Among the games I watched, he struggled much more against Michigan and wasn’t able to get away with some of the raw athleticism stuff he could against other teams. But even in that game he showed he could stack blockers and shed them to still make plays, even if he wasn’t able to get the same level of penetration:
He did just take some rep-to-rep Ls in that Michigan game and needs to work on how he handles physicality or not turning sideways out of a gap when he’s engaged. Below, Wolverines guard Trevor Keegan gets his hands on him and obliterates him to spring a touchdown:
He also seemed to take some plays off, not necessarily in a lazy way, but in more of an “I’m gonna really turn it on for key moments” sense. Chris Jones-ing it, if you will. You’re willing to tolerate some of that for a player as talented as him, but that also reared up in some moments in that UM game. When he lost a rep he was winning against the lesser teams, you could tell he was getting frustrated. Still, if your only real negative plays come against an o-line as good as 2023 Michigan, you’re probably fine. He’s, for my money, the best player on this list.
Hamilton (No. 58 in the videos above) is less flashy but another highly effective player in his role. He’s been part of the OSU rotation for 41 career games, making 13 starts. He split time last year about 50-50 with Michael Hall, a second-round pick of Cleveland in the latest NFL draft, and will likely take over that starting spot all to himself this year. He generates less splash than Williams but probably more dependability and is remarkably good at holding up against double teams for an undersized nose. Even in contests against good offensive lines, he rarely gets moved by blockers and holds the line well for a sub-300-pound player.
And if Williams was doing some freelancing/lazing, Hamilton was an all-effort all-the-time player, constantly battling even when outmatched or in clear losses.
OSU might also have the best depth player in the country in Kanu, a five-star recruit from Germany who would be an 800-snap player almost anywhere else based on his redshirt freshman tape. Kanu is 305 pounds but also comes from a soccer background, which shows up on tape with his speed off the line and quick foot agility. He played only around 100 snaps last year as the No. 4 tackle, but his rate stats in those snaps would have been among the best in the country had he qualified: a 14.3% stop percentage (would have been fourth nationally) and a 12.3% pass rush win rate (would have been 26th nationally).
For deeper depth, Malone is transferring in from Mississippi but doesn’t have much experience (he also played on Ole Miss’ baseball team and never attended spring practice), and McDonald and Moore only saw snaps in garbage time. Smith and Prater didn’t play at all. Mensah is a three-star who doesn’t seem likely to crack the rotation in his first year. OSU played last year with three guys getting the vast majority of the snaps, so they shouldn’t have to dip into these players much without injuries. But if they do that would be a cause for concern.
Hard to argue with this as a top three, any of whom could contend for all-conference honors, if not more. I do ding the depth a little bit, but the top end is so good, it doesn’t really matter.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Next post will be a bit of a fun departure from the preview series, though I want to keep it a surprise. I’m aiming to have it out in a week or so if I can pull it together. Then will be back to the previews, where I plan to do wide receivers next. GBR!
Similar to how Nebraska deployed Ty Robinson last year.
If you’re counting from previous installments, the Buffs are entering 2024 camp with, including walk-ons, eight cornerbacks/nickels, six running backs, and now six defensive tackles on their roster. How are they going to practice? Are rotational players going to have to work on the scout team? Not sure!
Nebraska did something similar with Nash Hutmacher last year.
Black, Lee and Graves played 1,797 of Iowa’s 1,939 IDL snaps last year
To explain the chart: Being higher on the vertical axis means offenses were able to have more down-to-down success; and being further to the right means they were able to generate more EPA. So being in the top right is the worst quadrant for your run defense, and bottom left is the best.
Ameer Abdullah’s senior year being the last, patron of this newsletter.
Phil Steele, ranking defensive lines on whole, had Ohio State No. 1, Nebraska fifth, and Iowa 13th among teams on the NU schedule, as well as conference-mates Penn State second and Michigan fourth. The Big Ten!
Excellent analysis